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CHAPTER THREE

HEART TO HEART

JAX

T hat couldn’t have gone worse.

Actually, it could have. I could have been responsible for giving her a concussion if the ball had actually hit her, but no, instead I bungled the whole interaction. I wasn’t lying when I told her it’s been a long, frustrating week, at the end of a long frustrating month, nearing the end of a long frustrating few years. Also doesn’t help that today I should have been celebrating my eleventh wedding anniversary instead of taking early morning batting practice with my brother.

“What is wrong with you?” James asks the minute I open the car door and slide in beside him. “The only way that could have been worse is if you’d concussed her.”

“I’m not in the mood, James. Not today.”

“I know,” he still hasn’t turned on the ignition, so we sit in the silence of his car in a virtual stranger’s driveway. “And you can take it out on me all you want, but when you start snapping at strangers you’ve only just met, we need to deal with some things.”

“I know.” I scrub a hand down my face, and lean my head against the seat.

“Jax. Talk to me.”

“When I sent them back to school last month, they each had one of those about me papers to do, and this one asked about parents, which led to the inevitable questions.” Where’s our mom? Did she leave? Is she coming back? How do you explain to your eight and ten year olds that their mom left because she didn’t want to be a mom anymore? Because she didn’t want to be my wife anymore? There’s no good way to explain it. “I don’t know what to tell them anymore, James. There’s no way to explain it without it looking like she left because of them. ”

I can’t be a mother anymore.

Her words are seared into my brain.

It would have been one thing to leave me , it’s another thing altogether to leave those girls. When Angela left, leaving me on my own with an infant and a toddler, I moved back into Mom and Dad’s house for a while, taking all the help I could get. There were so many days that I wanted to give up, so many days that I wished I could pinch myself and wake up from what was surely a bad dream, but then the divorce I never wanted was finalized, and I had full custody of my daughters. She didn’t want anything to do with them, and that was when I realized that we were dealing with the best possible outcome for them – they are with a parent who loves them so, so deeply. With a family that will do anything for them, and I can’t imagine my life without them.

“I love my kids, James, and I can’t help but wonder sometimes if they’re missing out because I work so much, or if they’re missing out because I haven’t dated and settled down with anyone…”

“No,” James puts a hand on my shoulder, “Jax, they have the best dad in the world, and a family that loves them as much as you do. There’s never been any question that you love your girls, and sure you work, but more often than not the girls are with any number of us. Mandy spoils them rotten, and loves being able to babysit…especially after they ran off the last one.”

I sit up with a laugh, turning to my brother. He's heard all of the babysitting horror stories, but the last one happened while he and Mandy were gallivanting around the United Kingdom on their honeymoon, and I apparently haven’t filled him in yet.

“They didn’t run the last one off, as a matter of fact. I fired her.”

“You fired a teenager?”

“I have one rule: if you’re under twenty-one, no significant others in my house while you’re watching my children. She had him come over one night, probably thinking the girls wouldn’t say anything…”

“Had she met Alice up to that point?”

“Nope,” I laugh, for the first time in a long time, I actually laugh. Because Alice is my little stickler for the rules and everyone knows it. She’s also a reader, which makes her dangerous. She just started third grade and reads at a fifth grade level, probably because every member of my family – including me – has been reading to the girls since the moment they were born and then shoving books at them ever since. “Alice called Nell, Nell called me. I fired the girl on the spot. I could have probably handled that better than I did, but here we are.”

“So why the grumpy pants routine today?”

“Today would have been our eleventh anniversary, if Angela had stuck around.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“One time since she left. Not on a birthday or for Christmas, or even to check on the girls. No, she called to see if she’d accidentally left her passport with me or her parents. I told her she was free to come and look for it, that the girls and I wouldn’t be there.”

James sits silently beside me, his face stony, hands curled into fists.

“I can practically feel your brain buzzing. What are you thinking?”

“Mom raised us not to say anything at all if we couldn’t say anything nice, and I have nothing nice to say about her.”

“Fair enough.”

When she left me, if she’d gone off on a worldwide backpacking trip, or told me she was going to move to the arctic to be a survivalist, I thought maybe I could handle that. But when she reached out two years later, I looked for her passport, which I didn’t have, and then I dropped the girls at Mom and Dad’s and ran until my lungs burned and my heart was beating so hard that I thought I was having a heart attack.

She needed the passport for her honeymoon.

She’s married and living in Southern California, about as far away from us and her parents as she could get. I didn’t ask many questions when we talked, I don’t want to know the answers. She didn’t ask about the girls or her parents, didn’t ask about me, and I’m fine with that. As far as I’m concerned she doesn’t deserve to know how the girls are doing, or that despite everything, her parents have become a part of our family.

She doesn’t deserve to know that Alice is reading through books faster than I can keep them in the house, or that Mackenzie is a whiz with a soccer ball. She doesn’t deserve to know about the chicken pox outbreak a few years ago that claimed both girls…at the same time that I had pneumonia. Sure, we were all sick for a week and a half, but it was a week and a half that I got to spend, uninterrupted, with my girls. She doesn’t deserve to know that Alice wakes up with nightmares and more often than not sleeps in my bed. Or that Mackenzie worries so much about her little sister, that she sleeps curled up on her other side.

She didn’t want those things back then.

She doesn’t deserve them now.

Not that she ever asked.

“Do you have plans for the day?” James asks, finally turning on the ignition and pulling out of Emma’s driveway.

“I need to take the girls shopping; they’re outgrowing everything faster than I can keep up with them.”

“Let Mandy and I do that.”

“I can’t ask that of you, James.” I heave a sigh and sink deeper into my seat, thinking of everything else we need for the weeks ahead, and that I get to go to one of Mackenzie’s soccer games since I won’t be on-call this weekend. For once.

“When’s the last time you slept?” James asks, pulling me out of my self reflection.

“Last night.”

“I mean, when’s the last time you slept without your children in your bed?”

“It’s been a while.”

James turns away from the road that would take us to Mom and Dad’s and starts driving the opposite direction. I don’t question him – I’ve learned not to question James, he usually knows what he’s doing. When he pulls to a stop in my driveway, we sit in silence for a long moment.

“Go inside and go to sleep. Mandy and I will take the girls for the day and then you can meet us back at our place for dinner tonight. No arguments.”

“You caught me on a good day,” I laugh as I climb out of the car, and dig my wallet out of my pocket before passing James my credit card. “I’ve got no fight left in me today.”

I don’t bother with a shower or even changing out of my sweaty tee shirt and shorts. I kick off my shoes and remove my socks before falling onto my bed without bothering to turn down the comforter or remove the pointless decorative pillows, and when I wake up, it’s growing dark. I missed dinner with the family, and a slew of texts from James are waiting for me.

James: We’ve got leftovers for you.

Mandy says we can keep the girls overnight if you want.

Having a campfire. Mom and Dad walked down. J I’m thankful Amanda and Penelope – the responsible adults – are with them. When I get to James and Amanda’s house, Amanda meets me in the kitchen with a plate of leftover roasted chicken and macaroni and cheese. I bring it out to the fire and sit down on the blanket Alice and Mackenzie are occupying, and Alice snuggles up against me almost immediately while Mackenzie stretches out beside me, leaning against my shoulder as I eat dinner.

These girls of mine.

As much as I loved being able to rest today, I love this more: being here with them and the rest of the family, for the first time in too long. I’ve missed so much over the years, and as the girls get older I don’t want to miss any more. As I watch Jake hold his infant daughter, I feel a familiar longing in my heart for time spent with my daughters. As Leigh toddles over to her dad and baby sister, I remember those days with my own girls and can’t help the tears that sting at the back of my eyes.

“Hey kiddo,” I drop a kiss on the top of Mackenzie’s head, “why don’t you and your sister go get into your pjs?”

“We still get to say the night with Uncle James and Aunt Mandy, right?”

“Yes,” I chuckle at the earnestness in her gaze. “You do. Now go up and change.”

I watch as Mackenzie takes her sister’s hand and the two of them walk up the sloping lawn toward the steps of the deck and scrub a hand down my face as the door shuts behind them.

“I think it might be time for us to go,” Penelope stands as Jake passes baby Juniper into her arms and Jake stands to pick up Leigh.

“Hold on,” I stand and step toward Nell, “I haven’t seen Junie in too long.”

Penelope transfers my niece into my arms and I’m graced with a wide-eyed grin from the newest member of our family. I hold her for a minute and kiss her forehead before passing her off to her mom’s waiting arms. Mom and Dad walk back toward their house with Jake and Penelope, leaving me with James and Amanda.

“Okay. Enough stalling,” James watches me from across the dying campfire. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m sorry you had to take them today.”

“Don’t ever apologize for letting us spend time with those girls, Jax.” This, from Amanda. “But, I have a feeling this is a conversation that’s been brewing for a while, so I’m going to go up and check on the girls and help them make up the campsite that I promised them in the living room.”

Amanda makes her way up the lawn, and James watches her before shifting his focus back to me.

“Do you remember what you said to me in the hospital the night of my anxiety attack?” James asks, eyes straying to the crackling fire.

“I vaguely remember saying something wise and big brother like, yes.”

“Sounds about right,” James cracks a smile and looks my way. “You said, ‘I’ve been in this hole and I know the way out.’ And Jax, I’m here to tell you that I think you’re still getting out of the hole.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, after Angela left you worked and parented. You had, and still have, the support of the family, and Mr. and Mrs. O, but Jax, if you don’t make a change, you’re going to completely burnout. And trust me, you don’t want that. I mean, for crying out loud, when was the last time you took a day off?”

“Excuse me, I took time off when my daughters both had chicken pox.” That was the worst week and a half of my life. I love my daughters, but trying to keep them mostly away from each other because the virus was running on different timelines in each of their bodies, convincing Alice not to scratch even though she really wanted to, and then the stomach flu that hit us all right after? I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

“Jax, all I’m saying is consider a schedule change at work. Talk to Nate and Erin, I’m sure they’ll be understanding. Let me, let us, help you for a while longer, okay?”

“When did you get so wise?” I ask my brother, only partly joking.

“When I married Amanda,” he answers without a hint of laughter, and it’s true. Ever since he met Amanda, I’ve seen a change in my brother, I’ve seen how he’s grown and couldn’t be prouder of him.

“Thanks James.”

“Always, Jax.”